What we were
by RocknRollagirl
Summary: "I don t think we can ever be what we were". But maybe they didn t have to be. Season 11


**Hello there:)**

 **Just a little story that demanded to be written. Inspired by BlueRiverSteel´s "Windows to the soul" and brought to you thanks to the grammar skills of my awesome beta Soncnica:)**

 **Don´t own them but all the remaining mistakes**

"Come on Sammy, not much further to the car, just keep your eyes open, man, one foot before the other, that´s it-"

Dean is rambling, words spilling out and engulfing him like a blanket in the coolness of the night. There is something between the syllables, in the way Dean´s voice sounds a little too bright and a little too calm that should set off all the alarm bells in his head, but if it does, their ringing gets lost somewhere in the fog all around him. He tries to answer, to calm his brother down, to say something reassuring but he can´t catch his breath, air leaking out of him like the blood he can feel dripping down his back.

He feels the ground under him tip to the right lazily and in the next second pain explodes in his left side, stealing the residual air from his lungs and filling the night sky with blinding white stars.

"Sammy! No no no, come on, none of that, open your eyes, open them!"

Dean´s voice fades in and out, distorted like a cassette played backwards, and jeez,why is it so cold suddenly? He can´t recall closing his eyes but he must have, because the next blink reveals a blurry shape above him, eyes hidden beneath the shadows of the night and for a moment he´s sure it´s _Him_ , waits for the taunting voice gleefully retelling just another segment of the endless reel of his life´s failures and isn´t this familiar, the woods, the night, the mind-numbing coldness. He was fifteen and sidetracked and Dean had nearly lost his right arm and-

No.

Dean.

He came and looked the devil in the face and got him out.

Dean.

Lost in his mind, in swirling fragments threatening to pull him under, some memories, some fears, some nightmares and some a mix of it all, he holds on to the name like it´s a singular truth.

And then there are hands on his shoulders again, grounding him, pulling him back from _there_ and up from the ground, lightening up the fire in his side again, but that grounds him, too. His face is mashed up against old leather and there´s a fading echo of _dad_ and the overpowering sense of _Dean_ and he feels himself go lax, muscle memory from a lifetime spend finding safety exactly _here_. The overwhelming relief sends everything swirling again.

"Hey, come on man, you did enough fainting for a day, don´t ya think?"

There are fingers on both sides of his face, firm but gentle, and the voice is back, so clearly his brother´s he wonders how he could´ve ever taken it for someone else´s.

He forces his eyes open, returning the worried gaze with as much resolve as he can and drags his hand up, fisting it in the leather. _Let´s go, brother_.

He doesn´t have to say it out loud for Dean to hear it and he feels himself being hauled up, his hand carefully untangled and then placed over a steady shoulder and off they go again. His eyes keep dropping against his will, shoes filled with lead, but Dean just keeps on pulling him up, keeps on walking, like stopping never even crossed his mind.

Maybe it hasn´t.

Maybe, after all, after everything, he sees something that goes beyond tonight, that´s worth walking on. Worth holding on.

And maybe it´s the walking on in itself. The knowledge that someone holds on to you, goes on for you, goes to hell and back for you and maybe they both finally understand that this is what they have, who they are.

 _I don´t think we can ever be what we were_

Words spoken with fear, anger, bitterness, resignation, facing impossible odds. Or so it seemed. And yet here they are, few apocalypses later and still breathing and he knows that all the paper in the world wouldn´t be enough for him to list his regrets, but this, right now, saving people, hunting things, being a brother, isn´t one of them.

Dawn creeps over the horizon, lifting away more of the shadows with every passing second as the Impala comes into view.

"Nearly there, little brother, you just hold on", hands on his chest, holding him up as he leans against the solid frame that´s always been home in all the ways that mattered.

 _I don´t think we can ever be what we were._

And maybe they can´t. Can´t go back to being that innocent, that scared, that shortsightened, that blind or unwilling to see. They are human still, and isn´t that it´s very own miracle, making new mistakes nowadays, but in moments like these he knows that they finally found each other again, found their way and their purpose and their place. Knows, even without ever giving voice to it, that the past lays behind them, fading more with every day they´re moving forward together and that they would hold on to that with everything that they´ve got. Go on, together.

Maybe they can´t be what they had been, but they can be what they are.

And maybe that will be enough.


End file.
